"An Awakening for Milwaukee": TMJ4 Revisits Jeffrey Dahmer's Arrest, 30 Years On (2021, with 1991 Footage)

Name: "An Awakening for Milwaukee": TMJ4 Revisits Jeffrey Dahmer's Arrest, 30 Years On (2021, with 1991 Footage)
Uploaded: 2021-07-24T00:00:00Z
Duration: 3 min 5 s
Description: Milwaukee's TMJ4 marks 30 years since Dahmer's arrest with its own 1991 footage and the memories of the station photographer and crime reporter who covered it, and asks how police treated Konerak Sinthasomphone.

Milwaukee's TMJ4 marks 30 years since Dahmer's arrest with its own 1991 footage and the memories of the station photographer and crime reporter who covered it, and asks how police treated Konerak Sinthasomphone.

Subject: Jeffrey Dahmer
Recorded: about July 23, 2021
Runtime: 3:05

Content warning: Refers to human remains carried out of Dahmer's apartment and to the death of a 14-year-old boy; no graphic detail beyond those phrases.

The Interview

This is not an interview with Jeffrey Dahmer, who is not heard. It is a three-minute report by TMJ4 News (WTMJ-TV) in Milwaukee, broadcast in July 2021 to mark 30 years since Dahmer's arrest. Reporter Rebecca Klopf returns to the site of his apartment building with Clayborn Benson, a former TMJ4 photographer, and talks to Jeff Fleming, who covered the case as a TMJ4 reporter in 1991. The report is built around the station's own footage from the morning of the discovery, including a neighbor and a relative of a missing man.

Historical Context

Late on July 22, 1991, Tracy Edwards escaped from Dahmer's apartment in the Oxford Apartments on Milwaukee's west side, near the Marquette University campus, and flagged down two police officers. In the apartment they found photographs and human remains, and Dahmer was arrested. He confessed to 17 murders committed between 1978 and 1991. In February 1992 he was sentenced in Wisconsin to consecutive life terms for 15 murders, and in May 1992 in Ohio for his first. He was killed by another inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution on November 28, 1994. Two months before the arrest, on May 27, 1991, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone had escaped from the apartment; officers who responded accepted Dahmer's account and returned the boy to him, and Dahmer killed him.

Circumstances

TMJ4 aired the report on its 10 p.m. news ("new at 10") around the 30th anniversary and posted it on July 24, 2021. The 1991 footage is WTMJ-TV's own coverage of the discovery. The building was demolished in 1992; the reporter describes the site in 2021 as a grassy lot.

What the Recording Covers

The 1991 anchor reports "a very gruesome discovery in Milwaukee overnight", and a field reporter says police found "an apartment full of pieces of people". A neighbor says residents had thought the smell came from Dahmer's deep freeze. Benson recalls seeing remains carried out the back door and family members arriving at the scene holding up photographs of missing brothers and cousins; a relative says the man he was looking for never returned "from getting his key made" on April 7. Fleming says the Sinthasomphone case "raised very serious questions about how the police treated people", suggests the boy would have been treated differently had he been "a blond woman", and says the case changed how the department handles missing persons reports.

What Makes the Recording Significant

It preserves the Milwaukee station's own footage from the morning of the discovery, alongside the recollections of two journalists who covered it, and it frames the case as a turning point in how Milwaukee police dealt with reports of missing people.

Archival Importance

The report comes from the station that covered the arrest, and draws on its own archive and its own 1991 staff.

Important Caveats

Dahmer is not heard or seen speaking. The closing line, "sentenced to multiple life sentences for the murder of 17 people", is imprecise: he confessed to 17 murders and was convicted and sentenced for 16 (15 in Wisconsin, one in Ohio). The report says Sinthasomphone escaped "three months before Dahmer was caught"; it was about two months (May 27 to July 22, 1991). The relative at 01:41 is not named or identified in the video; TMJ4's article says Benson interviewed Errol Lindsey's brother, and Lindsey was killed on April 7, 1991, but the identification is an inference. Fleming's view on how the boy would otherwise have been treated is his opinion.

Tmj4 Anchor: All right, new at 10: marking 30 years since the arrest of one of the country's most prolific serial killers. Jeffrey Dahmer was captured in a west side apartment building, where investigators also found barrels of evidence. Rebecca Klopf explains how this case changed the city.

Station Announcement: From WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee's 24-hour news channel.

Wtmj Anchor: Very gruesome discovery in Milwaukee overnight. Milwaukee police find a horrifying scene inside an apartment building.

Wtmj Reporter: Police got here in the middle of the night, and what they found was an apartment full of pieces of people.

Rebecca Klopf: 30 years ago, Milwaukee woke up to news Jeffrey Dahmer was responsible for killing more than a dozen people. The majority of those murders happened in an apartment near the Marquette campus.

Neighbor: So we thought it was his deep freeze, and now we found out he's got dead bodies in it.

Rebecca Klopf: All that remains today of that site is a grassy lot.

Clayborn Benson: The fence was not here. This is all new.

Rebecca Klopf: We returned there with Clayborn Benson, a former TMJ4 photographer and current executive director of the Wisconsin Black Historical Society Museum. He remembers being there that morning with investigators.

Clayborn Benson: But we could actually see the body parts being carried out the back door.

Rebecca Klopf: He'll never forget the people who showed up to the crime scene.

Clayborn Benson: I began to see family members come and ask questions about [unclear: "who were these people, and" / "who were missing and what they were missing. And I think it's interesting to see how many of these people and"] that, that they know of their loved ones, and they would hold pictures up. They're saying, "I'm missing a brother," "I'm missing a cousin."

Relative Of A Missing Man: April 7 is when he didn't return back from getting his key made.

Rebecca Klopf: The Dahmer case was an awakening for Milwaukee in many ways.

Clayborn Benson: An awakening that, that there were people who were missing who were not followed up on.

Rebecca Klopf: Jeff Fleming works for the City of Milwaukee and the mayor's office. In 1991 he was a reporter for TMJ4.

Jeff Fleming: Clearly the case of Konerak Sinthasomphone raised very serious questions about how the police treated people.

Rebecca Klopf: Three months before Dahmer was caught, one of his victims, Konerak Sinthasomphone, escaped Dahmer's apartment. An alert neighbor called police when they saw the naked and disoriented 14-year-old boy running down the street. Police showed up, and so did Dahmer. He convinced police the boy was drunk and they were lovers. Police brought the boy back to Dahmer's apartment.

Jeff Fleming: Would they have treated Konerak Sinthasomphone differently had he been a blond woman? Probably they would have.

Rebecca Klopf: Fleming says there was an immediate change at the police department.

Jeff Fleming: Certainly it has changed the way the police department views missing persons cases. Looking at situations not as quickly dismissive cases, but cases that deserve follow-up.

Rebecca Klopf: Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to multiple life sentences for the murder of 17 people. He was killed in prison in 1994. Reporting in Milwaukee, Rebecca Klopf, TMJ4 News. [03:03 to 03:05: no speech in either machine source; clip ends.] ---